Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Cooper's Third Month!

Cooper was two months old (in his third month) from August 25 - September 24 Here's what he was up to this month:Weight: 15 - 16 lbs. (just a guess)Diaper: size 2Clothes: some 0-3 months, a lot of 3 months, and some 3-6 monthsEating: My big boy is doing great in this department. :) This month, he transitioned from breastfeeding to formula feeding. This was due to the fact that I am returning to work on October 1. At first, he didn't care for the formula at all (I mean - duh. That junk even smells gross). Then, once it became something that we didn't have a choice about, he did fine with it. He still gets a bottle of breast milk at his 5:00pm feeding every day, and I'll continue to do that until all of the milk in my freezer is gone. He's eating 6 times (sometimes 7) a day, and he eats anywhere between 4-6 oz at a feeding. He usually averages about 29 oz a day. He is actually slower at eating from a bottle than he was at nursing, so it takes him 15-30 minutes to finish a bottle depending on how much he's eating and how hungry he is.Sleeping: Overall, I think he's doing pretty good at this. While we still have our hiccups, they're nothing major that time won't fix. This month we dealt with two major things: a wonder week and a growth spurt. Not fun! He had his wonder week when he was 11 weeks old, and his growth spurt when he was 12 weeks old. He still always goes down for a nap sleepy but awake. Sometimes he'll sleep his whole nap with no problems, but sometimes he wakes up and it's a battle until the end. I typically let him cry/fuss long enough for him to decide that he's going to give it up and go back to sleep or if he's going to get serious about it. If he gets serious about it, I always go in there and get him and try to rock him back to sleep. It's not my favorite thing to have him not sleep in his crib, but he also just plain needs sleep. Getting hysterical won't help us with that at all.At night, he is still waking up once to eat. During his growth spurt, he started getting up twice a night again and it was *killing* me. I was exhausted. Now that his growth spurt is over, we're back to just once a night. I'm a little surprised that he's still not sleeping through the night at this age, but there's really not much I can do about it. He wakes up usually between 2-3 and eats 5 oz and goes right back to sleep. The reason that I say that there's not much I can do about it is the fact that he is legit hungry when I go in there. It's not like he's snacking on an ounce or two and going back to sleep. He chugs that bottle like his life depends on it! Honestly though, he's my last baby and I totally realize how fast this age goes. I really don't mind getting up to feed him. Before I know it, he'll be LL's age and this will all be a memory.

Bahaha - he'll love this one day.

My friend Jodi was helping in the nursery at church one Sunday and texted me this picture during service (bad - I know). But I was happy to know that he was sleeping because it was nap time!

Schedule: He's still on the same 3.5 hour schedule that he's been on for a while. Here's how his day goes:7:00 - 7:15 up for the day/eat8:00 -8:30 down for a nap10:30 eat11:30 down for a nap2:00 eat3:00-3:15 down for nap5:00 - 5:30 up to eat6:30ish cat nap with Mommy or Daddy snuggling him7:40 bath8:00 bottle and straight to bed2:00 eatHair: I was hoping that it wouldn't happen, but I knew that it probably would. The hair loss has begun! He typically sleeps with his head to one side or the other (not straight up and down), so I'm hoping that it won't get much worse than this!

Smiling/Happy: Really, this sweet boy is happy ALL the time. Unless he's having a rough nap, tired, or hungry, he is happy and smiling. His "witching hour" is gone and now he spends all of his awake times in the best little mood. He is smiling ALL the time now and it really is just the best thing. He's starting to laugh just a little bit, but it's not been a belly laugh yet. It's more like a dog panting or a squealing - haha.He is also a visual smiler. This means that he does not really smile in response to touch. Instead, he smiles in response to you smiling at him or talking to him.

Isn't this just the best??

Awake Time: We're finally starting to average between 1 hour and 1 hour 15 minutes of awake time. This means that we have tons more time to play! Typically we spend his awake time doing tummy time (usually about 5 minutes), playing in his jungle, sitting and "talking", or getting things done around the house. He really is content with doing just about anything as long as you're interacting with him!

I LOVE some baby kisses!

Lola was licking his head - haha.

Greeeeat face

Paci: This is officially a non-issue now. He hasn't even seen a paci in 2.5 weeks. Safe to say that he is not a paci baby! I *think* he might be a hand/finger sucker, though. But at the same time, I don't know if he's just in that phase. When he's awake, his fists are in his mouth about 50% of the time. I've noticed that when he's having trouble napping, he tries to get his fists to his mouth (even though his woombie prevents him from doing that). He never actually sucks on fingers though. So maybe it's just a phase?

Dream Feed: We have officially dropped this. It got to the point around 10 or 11 weeks old where it just wasn't doing anything. He got up at the same time (or sometimes even earlier!) than he did the nights that we didn't do one. We've just dropped it all together.Bumbo: His head control is getting good enough that we've started using his bumbo! He can't last for very long (about 5 minutes - tops), but he really likes looking around and it's great for his head/neck control.

Spitting: This child is a spitter! More accurately, he is a puker! It doesn't matter how many burps I get out of him, he is going to spit up a TON! It doesn't bother him, it's not projectile, and he's still growing fine, so I'm not really concerned about it. It's just gross!Swaddle: I did a whole post on this, but Cooper is still swaddled for now. I plan to just keep doing it until he turns 4 months and then start weaning him.Lorelai: He LOVES his sister. We she's around, he just stares at her the entire time. He follows her with his eyes and will just give her the BIGGEST smiles. Now that he's smiling at her, she's really started to take a liking to him, too. It's so cute to see their relationship forming and I can't wait to see them start to interact more and more together as he grows.